[RESOLVED] Get physical drive number given a drive letter

[Ellis Dee]

You can retrieve the physical serial number, model number and firmware revision given a drive number, (0, 1, etc..., where drive 0 is the primary master.)

How can I get the drive number associated with a drive letter?

[schoolbusdriver]

This seems to work OK with IDE drives, but not SATA in its present form: http://www.Planet-Source-Code.com/vb...57366&lngWId=1

[Ellis Dee]

I already know how to get the physical drive's serial number, model number and firmware revision. The code on how to do it was posted to the Codeback within the last couple days, plus I also found the original vbnet submission (that your link copied verbatim) when I went searching for an answer to the OP.

My question is more specific. When you download that code and look at it, the function that gets the drive information takes a numeric Drive parameter: 0 for primary master, 1 for primary slave, 2 for secondary master, 3 for secondary slave, etc...

What I'd like is to be able to call that function with a logical drive letter instead of a physical drive number. eg: "C:" instead of 0.

[amrita]

Check this link

http://www.freevbcode.com/ShowCode.Asp?ID=430

[Ellis Dee]

Thanks for the effort, but that's also a no-go. I use code similar to that as well, but the problem with the serial number is that it isn't permanent; it can be altered. (I'm not entirely sure how; I've heard that you can change it by reformatting the drive, but I suspect you'd have to low-level format it to change the serial number.)

The physical drive serial number is branded into the drive; it cannot be changed. (And it's an alpha-numeric, as opposed to the numeric serial number.)

Anyone know how to get the physical IDE drive number based on a logical drive letter?

[Ellis Dee]

Note: I am not asking about serial numbers. I already have the code to do that. The issue is that it expects a drive number, and I really want to send a drive letter instead.

I want it so bad...

heh

[westconn1]

i think some of the code from here can be used to get what you are asking, though it returns a lot more information than you are requiring

http://vbnet.mvps.org/index.html?cod..._diskdrive.htm
http://vbnet.mvps.org/index.html?cod...isk_chkdsk.htm
http://vbnet.mvps.org/index.html?cod...ogicaldisk.htm

the examples on these pages show that you can return the DeviceID which is the physical drive, also the caption or name, one of which should be the drive letter, probably you will have to loop through the drives to get the drive letter you want, also of course more than one drive letter can be on the same physical drive

[Ellis Dee]

Thanks for the links; that last one works.

The only problem with it is that I'd like to incorporate this solution into my reference-less library, and that solution requires a reference to Microsoft WMI Scripting Library in the project references.

That's a deal-breaker IMO, so I'll probably just leave it as a physical drive number. For branding purposes, that probably is enough anyway.

Is there any way to obtain the drive letter (as demonstrated in the third link above) without requiring a reference?

[westconn1]

you can use the createfile api to return the device no, then use DeviceIoControl to get much other info from the device including serial number disk number and partionnumber

[Ellis Dee]

Cool, thanks, I'll mess around with that for a bit.

[westconn1]

i mucked around with some code for it, but didn't figure if it was working correctly, but can post if you want, hard to find any good info about DeviceIOControl api

[Ellis Dee]

By all means, I would be grateful for any code snippets. It doesn't have to be functional. I can tinker around, but any type of direction would help.

[westconn1]

here is a project i created to play with, very little of it written by me, it is real messy as i kept pasting in more code from different internet sources as i found more information

[Nihilistic Mystic]

I had the same issue needing to get the logical drive # from the drive letter. I used the code that was posted and cleaned it up to do only that.
The function accepts a drive letter, ie "C:"( no "\") and returns its device type, logical drive #, and partition #.

Option Explicit
Private Enum IOCOMMANDS
    IOCTL_STORAGE_GET_DEVICE_NUMBER = &H2D1080
End Enum

Private Declare Function DeviceIoControl Lib "kernel32" _
  (ByVal hDevice As Long, _
   ByVal dwIoControlCode As Long, _
   lpInBuffer As Any, _
   ByVal nInBufferSize As Long, _
   lpOutBuffer As Any, _
   ByVal nOutBufferSize As Long, _
   lpBytesReturned As Long, _
   lpOverlapped As Any) As Long

Private Declare Function CreateFile Lib "kernel32" _
   Alias "CreateFileA" _
  (ByVal lpFileName As String, _
   ByVal dwDesiredAccess As Long, _
   ByVal dwShareMode As Long, _
   lpSecurityAttributes As Any, _
   ByVal dwCreationDisposition As Long, _
   ByVal dwFlagsAndAttributes As Long, _
   ByVal hTemplateFile As Long) As Long

Private Declare Function CloseHandle Lib "kernel32" _
   (ByVal hObject As Long) As Long

Private Const INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE As Long = -1&
Private Const GENERIC_READ As Long = &H80000000
Private Const FILE_SHARE_READ As Long = &H1
Private Const FILE_SHARE_WRITE As Long = &H2
Private Const OPEN_EXISTING As Long = 3

Type ddevicetype
    DEVICE_TYPE As Long
    deviceno As Long
    partionno As Long
End Type

Public Function DeviceCheckMedia(sDrive As String) As ddevicetype

    Dim hDevice As Long
    Dim bytesReturned As Long
    Dim success As Long
    Dim sdn As ddevicetype

'Open a handle to drive
    hDevice = CreateFile("\\.\" & sDrive, _
                        GENERIC_READ, _
                        FILE_SHARE_READ Or FILE_SHARE_WRITE, _
                        ByVal 0&, _
                        OPEN_EXISTING, _
                        0&, 0&)
'Issue GET_DEVICE_NUMBER command to DeviceIoControl
    If hDevice <> INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE Then
        success = DeviceIoControl(hDevice, _
                                IOCTL_STORAGE_GET_DEVICE_NUMBER, _
                                0&, _
                                0&, _
                                sdn, _
                                Len(sdn), _
                                bytesReturned, _
                                ByVal 0&)
    End If
'Close Handle to drive
    Call CloseHandle(hDevice)
'Return sdn contianing drive type, drive #,  and partition #
    DeviceCheckMedia = sdn
End Function

[Lord Orwell]

Here's some code i wrote a long time ago that finds all drives by their letter.

Declare Function GetDriveType& Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetDriveTypeA" (ByVal _
nDrive As String)
privat sub whatever()
   For Cl = 97 To 97 + 26
      dt = 0
      dt = GetDriveType(Chr(Cl) + ":\")
      If Cl < 102 Then MsgBox dt
      If dt <> 1 Then
         msgbox "Found drive " & Chr(Cl) + ":"
      End If
   Next Cl
end sub

[jcis]

Try this API

Private Declare Function PathGetDriveNumber Lib "shlwapi.dll" _
    Alias "PathGetDriveNumberA" (ByVal pszPath As String) As Long

It will return a number for any letter you pass, from "A:" to "Z:". So, you must be sure that Drive letter is Valid.
But, it seems that the drive number is always the same for a given letter, can it really be so simple?
Example, Add a multiline Textbox and this code..

    Dim i As Long, lDriveLetter As String
    
    Text1.Text = vbNullString
    For i = 65 To 90 'From A to Z
        lDriveLetter = Chr(i) & ":"
        Text1.Text = Text1.Text & lDriveLetter & vbTab & _
            PathGetDriveNumber(lDriveLetter) & vbNewLine
    Next

As Result I see this:

A:	0
B:	1
C:	2
D:	3
E:	4
F:	5
G:	6
H:	7
I:	8
J:	9
K:	10
L:	11
M:	12
N:	13
O:	14
P:	15
Q:	16
R:	17
S:	18
T:	19
U:	20
V:	21
W:	22
X:	23
Y:	24
Z:	25

Anybody get different results than me?

[Lord Orwell]

See my code above. that determines if the drive letter is valid. PathGetDriveNumber is designed to parse a string for a drive letter and tell you the number, so there isn't any checking in it. The docs i read on it indicate that they are always the same. Coupling this with my experience of using DEBUG, which uses the number instead of the letter, i will be inclined to agree that they don't change.

[Ellis Dee]

Thanks, Mystic, I'll take a look at that. I'm concerned about your use of the term "logical" instead of "physical" when describing the drive number, but I'm holding out hope.

jcis and Lord Orwell, I don't think it's that simple. Let's say you have a 100 gig hard drive that you partition into two logical drives: C: and D:. They are the same physical drive, but they are different logical drives. So in such an instance, I need both C: and D: to return the same number. It's possible that PathGetDriveNumber does, but sadly I don't have a partitioned hard drive to test it out on.

My purpose is to read the physical drive's serial number. I have code to do that, but it uses the physical drive number as a parameter. Also of note is that I don't think it works for SCSI drives, because the enumerated "physical drive numbers" it accepts are defined as:

1: Primary IDE Master
2: Primary IDE Slave
3: Secondary IDE Master
4: Secondary IDE Slave
5: Teritiary IDE Master
6: Tertiary IDE Slave
...etc...

[Nihilistic Mystic]

Sorry, I mis-spoke there. I did mean physical drive.
I'm not sure if this will help you generating the input you listed, this will give you the physical drive numbers as they are listed in the drive managment console. I'm not sure how you would find out which controller it is connected to becasue windows will assign a drive number the same whether you add a second drive to an IDE controller or plug in a USB drive. There may be a way to get the serial number directly with DeviceIoControl instead?

Just to clarify. The function returns 3 things

sdn.DEVICE_TYPE - type of drive, 7 for fixed disk, there is a list of the other return codes somewhere if you need them. I was only concerned with fixed disks.

sdn.deviceno - the device number or phycial disk number of the drive, 0 for first physical drive, 1 for 2nd, etc...

sdn.partitionno - the number of the partition, 1st partion on a physical disk is 1, second is 2 etc...

So, using your 100GB dirve with 2 partitons as an example

devicecheckmedia (C:)

returns
sdn.DEVICE_TYPE = 7
sdn.deviceno = 0
sdn.partitionno = 1

devicecheckmedia (D:)

returns
sdn.DEVICE_TYPE = 7
sdn.deviceno = 0
sdn.partitionno = 2

if we have a second physical drive with one partition E:

devicecheckmedia (E:)

returns
sdn.DEVICE_TYPE = 7
sdn.deviceno = 1
sdn.partitionno = 1

[Ellis Dee]

Deviceno is exactly what I need. You rock.

I don't have time to mess with this just yet, but I'm psyched.